This paper concerns collaboration between teachers in school-age educare and class teachers in grades 1 to 3. It is based on an ongoing project where five different schools collaborate and conduct research together with four teachers/researchers from Malmö University.

Questions that form the basis of the project are how collaboration is defined both in policy documents and in practice? How is collaboration regulated? What does collaboration look like in practice? What is collaborated on – and what is not? What examples of good collaboration exist and what characterizes them?

The theoretical framework is professional theory (cf. Parson; Brante). Professional theory concerns the emergence of occupations that have certain common characteristics that classify them as professions, such as requiring higher education with a degree and having a specialized professional language. Professions are also associated with power and status. Teaching professions are considered semi-professions. They are considered to have some of the elements required to be called professions but not others. A trend toward professionalization can be observed among teaching professions, for example through the introduction of certification. We also use Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus, and capital to analyze and understand what happens in the interaction between two categories of teachers.

The research network consists of five schools as well as Malmö University. Four municipalities are represented. Two different municipal administrative departments are also directly involved in the project. From each school, teachers in school-age educare, class teachers, and principals or assistant principals participate. The network meets two to three times each semester and holds workshops lasting about three hours. The conversations are recorded and become empirical material. Between meetings, we familiarize ourselves with previous studies and methodological articles. Some participants have also conducted small pilot studies. Currently, we are working together to develop an overarching and systematic methodological design.

Previous research in the area has identified various types of barriers to collaboration, such as lack of time, organizations that do not promote collaboration, different professional cultures, and hierarchical positions. The ambition of this research project is to take a step further by examining good examples of collaboration. The overarching purpose we seek to answer is: what is required for collaboration to work? A question highly relevant for teacher professions today.

We have seen that different factors play a significant role, both organizational and more personal. The examples we have observed often seem to be person-dependent, for instance, that people work well together in a collaboration and that personal traits therefore become crucial for achieving good collaboration. This makes collaboration vulnerable. We therefore see a need for structural factors to be in place, such as certain regulations and conditions regarding planning time, scheduling, explicit role descriptions, and specification of tasks. There is a need for a common language and terminology (cf. professional theory). We can also see that the different professions' capital needs to be made explicit (cf. Bourdieu).

Relationer mellan teori-praktik och mellan utbildning-yrkesverksamhet är eviga trätoämnen och gränserna mellan dessa verkar vara omöjliga att fastslå (om det nu överhuvudtaget är önskvärt)? Hursomhelst så är den eviga diskussionen kring relationerna mellan dessa "storheter" ständigt aktuell för professionsutbildningar i allmänhet och, i kölvattnet av den senaste lärarutbildningsutredningen (SOU 2008:109), för lärarutbildningar i synnerhet. Ska fokus ligga på den praktiska yrkesverksamheten eller på en teoretisk grund för professionen? Vad behöver pedagoger för kunskap och färdigheter? Finns det en specifik pedagogisk kompetens och hur ser den i så fall ut? Går det att utbilda till en profession eller krävs det flera år i en yrkespraktik för att erövra en nödvändig kompetens? Dessa är enbart en bråkdel av de frågor som präglat debatten om (för)skola och lärarutbildning, och svaren tycks växla över tid, beroende på bl.a. vilka ideologiska vindar som för tillfället blåser. Det finns en mängd uttryck och slagfärdiga begrepp som har figurerat i debatten om pedagogisk professionalism de senaste decennierna. Exempel på dessa är det livslånga lärandet, mångfaldskompetens, reflekterande praktiker, entreprenörskap, yrkesspråk, yrkeskvalitet och yrkesetik etc., vilka tycks signalera luddighet, osäkerhet och förvirring som kan hänga samman med en upplevd (och/eller reell) negativ statusförskjutning för läraryrkena i allmänhet. Vad betyder debatten för hur pedagogisk kompetens föreställs? Hur skrivs det om pedagogisk kompetens i media? Vad tar makthavare fasta på i texter som formuleras på policynivå och hur tänker sig studenter en professionell pedagogisk kompetens? Syftet med det forskningsprojekt, som föreliggande text anknyter till, är att undersöka föreställningar om pedagogisk kompetens, dels i media och på policynivå och dels bland forskare, studenter (och f.d. studenter) och lärarutbildare på lärarutbildningen. Fokus ligger särskilt på kunskap/kompetens i utbildningen och hur denna uppfattas vara relaterad till professionen, dvs. yrkespraktiken.

The preoccupation of the study revolves around relations between everyday life in Swedish schools and the multicultural context of Swedish society. Based on fieldwork, media debates, analysis of policy documents, discussions with teachers as well as teacher’s educators, and interviews with principals working in the elementary schools of Malmö, the dissertation explores three analytical arenas; schools as (re)producers of values and norms, the multicultural school and finally the locations of schools in time and space. The aim of the discussion concerning relations between the functions of education in modern societies, and migration related issues and aspects of multiculturalism, is to highlight paradoxes in the role of schools. The policy documents specify certain goals of education, which are paradoxically caught between the ideals of a traditional understanding of modernity and consequences of migration and globalisation. Schools and education in general, have a pivotal role in Swedish society, not merely as mediators of knowledge, but also as (re)producers of systems of values and norms. These values and norms constitute what is acceptable in society. The scope for ’otherness’ is restricted, but also negotiable and changeable. Values and norms in the context of schools are often considered to be self-evident and are therefore not up for discussions or debates in everyday work of teachers and principals. Some of these values are so well integrated in a ’common sense’, that they become invisible and unconscious. The ambition of the dissertation is to make them visible – to formulate and analyse them – to make a further discussion possible. The study concludes that the concept of critical multiculturalism could be useable for highlighting ideological aspects and paradoxes of the school in Sweden today. The role of education should be discussed in the light of relations between individuals and groups in society, and with self-understanding as well as, self-criticism as key aspects.